Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux, co-developed by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Although it aims to be fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it also provides additional packages not found in the upstream product; the most notable among these are various file systems, including Cluster Suite and Global File System (GFS), FUSE, OpenAFS, Squashfs and Unionfs, wireless networking support with Intel wireless firmware, MadWiFi and NDISwrapper, Sun Java and Java Development Kit (JDK), the lightweight IceWM window manager, R - a language and environment for statistical computing, and the Alpine email client.

Pat Riehecky has announced the release of Scientific Linux 7.2, the latest stable version of the Red Hat-based distribution enhanced with scientific applications: "Scientific Linux 7.2 x86_64 released." Some of the changes in this version include: "yum-conf files pointing to non-base SL (such as EPEL, ELRepo, SL-Extras, SL-SoftwareCollections, ZFS) have moved to a central location; the install media now features the yum-fastest-mirror plugin which should locate a quickly responding mirror for network installs; SL 7.2 includes initial support for Scientific Linux Contexts which should allow for ease of creating local customization for specific computing needs; OpenAFS has been updated to version 1.6.16; the IPA packages have been customized to remove the upstream links to their support services....." Read the release announcement and release notes for more information. Download (SHA256): SL-7.2-DVD-x86_64-2016-02-02.iso (4,230MB, pkglist). Separate live CD/DVD images with a choice of IceWM, GNOME or KDE desktops are also available: SL-72-x86_64-2016-02-03-LiveCD.iso (694MB), SL-72-x86_64-2016-02-03-LiveDVDgnome.iso (1,577MB), SL-72-x86_64-2016-02-03-LiveDVDkde.iso (1,713MB).

Pat Riehecky has announced the release of Scientific Linux 6.7, the latest update of the distribution's legacy branch, built from source package for the recently-released Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.7: "Scientific Linux 6.7 i386/x86_64. Existing 6x systems should run 'yum clean expire-cache'. Major differences from Scientific Linux 6.6: OpenAFS has been updated to the latest bug-fix release (1.6.14); epel-release-6-8 - this RPM has been updated to the latest upstream release; glusterfs-server - built from the TUV provided sources for the glusterfs client. Possible upgrade problems: sssd-common is no longer multilib compatible. If you are using sssd-common.i686 on x86_64 systems you will be unable to update. Please remove the i686 rpm on your x86_64 systems to resolve this issue." See the brief release announcement as well as the more detailed release notes for further information and a full list of differences between RHEL and Scientific Linux. Download the installation DVD image from here: SL-6.7-x86_64-DVD.iso (4,142MB, SHA256, pkglist).

Pat Riehecky has announced the release of Scientific Linux 6.6, the latest update of the distribution built from source package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6, with additional software meant for use in scientific and academic environments: "Scientific Linux 6.6 i386/x86_64. Major differences from SL6.5: OpenAFS has been updated to version 1.6.10 from openafs.org; X.Org Server features a new ABI. Users of proprietary drivers may experience issues with the X server loading due to changes between X.Org Server 1.13 and 1.15. Users of the 32-bit iSCSI utilities on x86_64 systems may experience multilib complaints. The 32-bit iSCSI utilities are not provided by upstream on x86_64 platforms. We have removed them from 6.6 to follow their behavior." Here is the brief release announcement, with further details available in the release notes. Download: SL-6.6-x86_64-2014-11-05-Install-DVD.iso (4,113MB, SHA256, pkglist). Live CD/DVD images of Scientific Linux 6.6 are also available.

Pat Riehecky has announced the availability of the first beta build of Scientific Linux 7.0, a distribution compiled from the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and enhanced with extra applications for scientific computing: "Today we are announcing a beta release of Scientific Linux 7. Changes since our last update: updated sl-release now correctly requires Coreutils for the post script; yum-cron, installed by default, now behaves in the same manner as yum-autoupdate; yum-conf-extras provides the SL Extras repository tracking TUV's Extras; yum-conf-hc provides the de-branded upstream hardware test toolkit; a standard DVD image is now provided, it should fit on a normal-sized DVD." Read the rest of the release announcement for a list of things not yet included in the release. More detailed information is available in the release notes. Download: SL-7-x86_64-DVD.iso (4,015MB, SHA256, pkglist).

Pat Riehecky has announced the availability of an early alpha release of Scientific Linux 7, a distribution compiled from the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: "Fermilab's intention is to continue the development and support of Scientific Linux and refine its focus as an operating system for scientific computing. Today we are announcing an alpha release of Scientific Linux 7. We continue to develop a stable process for generating and distributing Scientific Linux, with the intent that Scientific Linux remains the same high quality operating system the community has come to expect. This alpha does not include many historic SL addons. We would like to open discussion on which specific packages and utilities should be added to SL 7." Read the release announcement and release notes for further information. Interested alpha testers can download either the full 6.2 GB ISO image (which can be transferred to a USB storage device) or the small "netinst" image (SHA256): SL-7-x86_64-DVD.iso (6,377MB), SL-7-x86_64-netinst.iso (392MB).

Urs Beyerle has announced the release of "Live" editions of Scientific Linux 6.5, a distribution built from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 but enhanced with extra software applications for use in academic and scientific environments: "Scientific Linux 6.5 LiveCD, LiveMiniCD and LiveDVD are officially released. Changes since 6.4: software based on Scientific Linux 6.5; CUPS, Pidgin, Brasero, Qt, Gcalctool, gdisk, LFTP, spice-client, minicom and nc were removed from 'LiveCD' to save disk space. Notes: the live images are based on the Fedora LiveCD tools; if you install LiveCD to hard drive, the installation of the live image is done by Anaconda similar to the normal SL6 installation, all changes done during LiveCD usage are lost; you can install LiveCD on an USB stick with persistent changes using liveusb-creator included in sl-addons." See the full release announcement for further information. Download (SHA256): SL-65-x86_64-LiveDVD.iso (2,564MB, includes GNOME, IceWM, KDE), SL-65-x86_64-LiveCD.iso (698MB, GNOME only), SL-65-x86_64-LiveMiniCD.iso (514MB, IceWM only).

Connie Sieh has announced the release of Scientific Linux 6.5, a distribution built from source package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 with extra software designed for use in scientific and academic environments: "Scientific Linux 6.5 is officially released for i686/x86_64. As a reminder, the SL6x repository always points to the most recent release. The SL6x repository has been updated to SL6.5 at this time. Users of the Scientific Linux 6x repository should run 'yum clean expire-cache'. This should allow yum to notice the updated metadata within the 6x repository. Major differences from Scientific Linux 6.4: OpenAFS has been updated to version 1.6.5.1 from openafs.org - this package may have some issues, please note there is a possibility for system panic under certain conditions; alpine 2.10 - updated to more recent version (from Fedora); yum-autoupdate-2 6.3 - bug fixes for extra, useless reporting, remove the obsolete augeas lense." Read the release announcement and release notes for more information. Download: SL-65-x86_64-2014-01-27-Install-DVD.iso (4,276MB, SHA256).

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